Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/308

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��Popular Science Monthly

��Shock Absorbers

��AFTER a season without shock ab- sorbers on an automobile and a sea- son with them, a driver will be thorough- ly convinced of their worth. Here are given sketches and descriptions of a type which can be built by anyone handy with tools. The advantages of shock absorb- ers may be summed up in three words : comfort, speed and saving. With shock absorbers a light car equals in riding quality cars of much greater weight and longer wheel base. A speed of five to ten miles more per hour is practicable. The

���These shock absorbers may be made with the aid of a few good tools

saving is in the general wear and tear on the machine and especially in the tires.

The absorbers shown here are fairly simple in construction, requiring no welding or other difficult forging opera- tions and but the simplest of machine shop operations, that of drilling.

The rear absorber is somewhat simpler than the front one. Eight of the brackets shown are worked up. The hole in the top is formed by bending the piece of Ya" X }'^" mild steel around the proper size pin. The size of this hole is not given, as it will vary, in some cases be-

��ing yi" and in others 9/16", depending on the make of car. This is a matter which the maker must determine before ordering the stock. Cold rolled steel is used for all bolts. The width of the spring leaf will determine the length of the bolts.

After the brackets have all been bent up a clip is placed around the neck of each. Some of the /4" x }i" stock is used for these. The clip is first made U-shaped and then placed over the neck while hot and the ends clinched or bent over. These ends should be just long enough to come together when bent over. The cross bar at the bottom of the rear absorber is made long enough to support the side of the springs. This bar is made from 54" X 1" stock. The bottoms of the brackets having been bent to shape, the cross bar is held in position and the holes drilled. Rivets of Y^" are used to hold these parts together, but before fastening finally the springs must first be provided and fit on the brackets. It is best to round the corners of the brackets to form a better support for the spring as well as to prevent the coils becoming nicked, thus causing them to weaken and finally break.

Owing to the method of attaching front springs in use on almost all types of cars, the design of the front shock absorber must be radically different from that of the back. Here the pull is up instead of down, so the coil springs must be held rigid at the upper end and links used to transmit the shock down and un- der the bottom ends of the coil springs, which in this case are the free ends. A study of the sketch will show the con- struction clearly. In order to prevent the springs coming up over the bracket too far a set screw is placed in each side of each bracket as suggested in the sketches. A Ya" set screw is heavy enough for this. The link is detailed in the sketch, except the size of the holes which will be determined by the size of the holes in the spring. The bottom cross bar is cut off even with the edge of the bracket instead of allowing it to extend as in the case of that on the rear absorb- er. The corners are again ground round before assembling the springs in place permanently.

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